Self-HWDebug: Automation of LLM Self-Instructing for Hardware Security Verification

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Akyash, Mohammad, Kamali, Hadi Mardani
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913357680869376
author Akyash, Mohammad
Kamali, Hadi Mardani
author_facet Akyash, Mohammad
Kamali, Hadi Mardani
contents The rise of instruction-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) marks a significant advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) (tailored to respond to specific prompts). Despite their popularity, applying such models to debug security vulnerabilities in hardware designs, i.e., register transfer language (RTL) modules, particularly at system-on-chip (SoC) level, presents considerable challenges. One of the main issues lies in the need for precisely designed instructions for pinpointing and mitigating the vulnerabilities, which requires substantial time and expertise from human experts. In response to this challenge, this paper proposes Self-HWDebug, an innovative framework that leverages LLMs to automatically create required debugging instructions. In Self-HWDebug, a set of already identified bugs from the most critical hardware common weakness enumeration (CWE) listings, along with mitigation resolutions, is provided to the framework, followed by prompting the LLMs to generate targeted instructions for such mitigation. The LLM-generated instructions are subsequently used as references to address vulnerabilities within the same CWE category but in totally different designs, effectively demonstrating the framework's ability to extend solutions across related security issues. Self-HWDebug significantly reduces human intervention by using the model's own output to guide debugging. Through comprehensive testing, Self-HWDebug proves not only to reduce experts' effort/time but also to even improve the quality of the debugging process.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_12347
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Self-HWDebug: Automation of LLM Self-Instructing for Hardware Security Verification
Akyash, Mohammad
Kamali, Hadi Mardani
Cryptography and Security
The rise of instruction-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) marks a significant advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) (tailored to respond to specific prompts). Despite their popularity, applying such models to debug security vulnerabilities in hardware designs, i.e., register transfer language (RTL) modules, particularly at system-on-chip (SoC) level, presents considerable challenges. One of the main issues lies in the need for precisely designed instructions for pinpointing and mitigating the vulnerabilities, which requires substantial time and expertise from human experts. In response to this challenge, this paper proposes Self-HWDebug, an innovative framework that leverages LLMs to automatically create required debugging instructions. In Self-HWDebug, a set of already identified bugs from the most critical hardware common weakness enumeration (CWE) listings, along with mitigation resolutions, is provided to the framework, followed by prompting the LLMs to generate targeted instructions for such mitigation. The LLM-generated instructions are subsequently used as references to address vulnerabilities within the same CWE category but in totally different designs, effectively demonstrating the framework's ability to extend solutions across related security issues. Self-HWDebug significantly reduces human intervention by using the model's own output to guide debugging. Through comprehensive testing, Self-HWDebug proves not only to reduce experts' effort/time but also to even improve the quality of the debugging process.
title Self-HWDebug: Automation of LLM Self-Instructing for Hardware Security Verification
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12347